Ford Raptor Lays Waste to Supercharged GMC Canyon
The Ford Raptor is pretty awesome off-road. But it also makes one excellent dragster.
Read the millions of Ford Raptor reviews out there, and it’s pretty clear that this thing is made to go fast off-road. But we’ve also come to find that Ford’s destroyer of worlds makes a pretty darn good on-road dragster, too. With an advanced four-wheel drive system that doubles as all-wheel drive, there’s plenty of traction for any condition. Throw in a twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6 with 450 hp and 510 lb-ft of torque, and you’ve got a recipe for success.
However, there are some caveats. Common thought surrounding turbos is that they need to spool up before delivering max power. This creates “turbo lag” at low rpms. Superchargers, on the other hand, provide boost right off the line, as soon as you slam the go pedal. So when The Fast Lane Truck came across a pal who happens to drive a supercharged GMC Canyon, it only made sense to test out this theory. You know, for science!
The Canyon is stock minus the supercharger. But the power adder is good enough to boost horsepower up to 370 and torque to 326 lb-ft at the wheels. Even taking into consideration the drivetrain power loss, it would appear that the GMC is already at a disadvantage. But the Canyon, a mid-size truck by classification, is lighter. By roughly 1,000 pounds.
That, however, doesn’t matter. The Raptor simply hooks the pavement in 4A and doesn’t look back. That complex four-wheel drive system does its job superbly, making the Ford Raptor an incredibly easy vehicle to consistently rip off quarter mile passes in. Just twist a knob, spool up the turbos, and let off the brake. And prepare to lay waste to all sorts of competition.
